Dutch Christmas

While eight flying reindeer are a hard pill to swallow, our Christmas story remains relatively simple. Santa lives with his wife in a remote polar village and spends one night a year traveling around the world. If you’re bad, he leaves you coal. If you’re good and live in America, he’ll give you just about anything you want. We tell our children to be good and send them off to bed, where they lie awake, anticipating their great bounty. A Dutch parent has a decidedly hairier story to relate, telling his children, “Listen, you might want to pack a few of your things together before you go to bed. The former bishop from Turkey will be coming along with six to eight black men. They might put some candy in your shoes, they might stuff you in a sack and take you to Spain, or they might just pretend to kick you. We don’t know for sure, but we want you to be prepared.” This is the reward for living in Holland. As a child you get to hear this story, and as an adult you get to turn around and repeat it. As an added bonus, the government has thrown in legalized drugs and prostitution–so what’s not to love about being Dutch?
— David Sedaris (Esquire, December 2002)

16 thoughts on “Dutch Christmas”

  1. Tch! If you live in America, you’ll get almost anything u want for christmas? I don’t think so! Shup up you dutch bastard!

  2. Hey im American and i like dutch i think that they are really nice people. I think it is kool. We all have traditions dont get mad because yours is different than someone.

    1. Hi wendy

      Think mister is confuse we have Sinterklaas and christmas .
      And Sinterkaas is the person that put bad kids into a sack and that’s the only one with Pieten ( means black ppl )

      Christmas we celibrate same as you

  3. I am a Dutch- American. My great grandparents immagrated. It is different, but i have been told that story atleast once. It isn’t bad. I think it MAKES the children WANT to sleep. Sure worked for me.

  4. who wants a fat man to come to your house, eat all your food then leave you some dumpy little toy that falls apart the day after the warrenty expires any way. i’d much rather have some gang of black men come to my house and jump me while i sleep. i meen come on lets be seriouse!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Quotes from linked articles are probably the property of the publications linked or the property of the person(s) quoted. The rest © 2001- 2024 by James A. Chappell